


Before with After

by setphasersto_potatosalad



Category: Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 03:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17542115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setphasersto_potatosalad/pseuds/setphasersto_potatosalad
Summary: Stefan comes to Colin get out of the hole. He doesn't get what he expects.-Colin has time powers. It's cannon. So he helps Stefan out by helping him get in touch with his younger side.





	Before with After

“Colin’s in the hole.”

 

“You gonna get him out?”

 

“Mhm.”

 

Kitty was a pretty woman. Not in the sense that Stefan would have seen her on the street and suddenly wished he had the courage to take a woman home for once, but in a way that made her orange hair look like like a fire and more like a teddy’s fur. Welcoming instead of destructive. Not like Colin. Colin’s hair was a beacon gone rouge. It shone for whoever it pleased and lead you into cliffs if you weren’t careful.

 

Stefan swallowed.

 

Colin lead him into his- study? There was a computer. Two computers. Man must’ve had money he could have never dreamed of. And the posters. Posters just like anybody would’ve had- but Colin was much more than anybody. He was _Colin_. Made perfect games like no one could.

 

“Is that- is that from Akira?” Stefan pointed to a poster behind what looked like Colin’s chair. It had a black hole in the middle of a cityscape.

 

Colin glanced up from his spot rolling cigarettes. “Mm. Yeah. You know it?”

 

“Yeah, it’s- it’s amazing. D’you think we’ll ever get- y’know. To 2019?”

 

Colin smirked. “We’re already there, mate.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Our timelines have to lead somewhere, don’t they? Everything exists not just once, but all _at_ once. Some bloke’s looking forward to, say, 2019. And then some bloke, maybe the same’s, looking back to 1989.”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Sure you do. We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”

 

Stefan shut his eyes and shook his head. His skull felt like it was shrinking on his brain, aching and pulsing. “I don’t- I don’t want to talk about that, Colin. I’ve had a rough go of it, yeah? I don’t. I don’t need that.”

 

“Yeah.” Colin sat back. He lit his cigarette.

 

The smoke hit his nose a few moments later and Stefan couldn’t stop the grimace. Not quite cigarettes, then.

 

“Go on,” Colin said, “grab a pew.”

 

He didn’t. Stefan walked towards the poster with his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Did you- did you know Akira had something like twenty four frames per second? All hand drawn. And the color palettes were- they were some of the richest things I’ve ever seen.” He turned to Colin. “How many times have you seen it?”

 

Colin watched him. His eyes shifted from Stefan to the poster and his face morphed into confusion. “That isn’t right. You’re supposed to sit.”

 

“What?”

 

“C’mon, Stefan, don’t be daft. We’ve been here before. You know how this plays out. We all know how this plays out. You get high, then one of us dies.”

 

“I don’t- Colin, are you alright?”

 

Colin rose like a shot, but then something clicked. His face softened. “Given another chance, are we? Alright. I can respect that.” His roach stubbed out in an ashtray. “I understand now.”

 

Stefan looked back at the poster for half a second. “I- why do you have the poster if you don’t like it that much?”

 

“Stefan, mate, it’s not _about_ the bloody film. It’s about what it represents. What can be, would could be, and what will be.”

 

“Maybe I should go.” Stefan edged towards the entrance.

 

“You’ll dive straight off the cliff if you do that. You want that?”

 

Stefan swallowed. He shook his head.

 

“Yeah. That’s what I thought. Now we still have an _objective_. You want to get out of the hole, don’t you?”

 

Stefan stared. “Yes.”

 

Colin grinned. “Then let’s get started.” He rose from his chair. “I’m gonna show you, Stefan.”

 

Stefan’s eyebrows furrowed and he watched. “Show me what?”

 

“What it means to exist _here_ and _there_.” He pointed behind himself.

 

The words tumbled out of Stefan’s mouth before he could register. “Please don’t make me go to the balcony.”

 

“The balcony? So you do remember. But, no, Stefan, this is something else entirely. A _fix-it_ , if you will. We’re going on another path. Something I’ve never seen before- can you imagine? Something coming from nowhere after we’ve done this thousands of times and- bloody hell, mate, would ya sit down already?”

 

Stefan looked down at his locked knees. “Oh. Yeah.” He sat on the couch and looked up at Colin. Pot still hung in the air. Colin turned on a fan.

 

“Y’know why I never smoke ‘round Pearl?”

 

“Er. No?”

 

“She needs to build her _own_ experience. Little peanut might not even be a year old yet, but everything I do- everything _we_ do is going to change how she goes out. Which is why she doesn’t need smoke in her lungs. Of any kind. Not good for babies, y’know?”

 

“Not- not really.”

 

Stefan’s extended family was limited. After Mum died, Dad cut them out. And Dad didn’t have any siblings. His cousins on Mum’s side that he saw were only ever his age. There could have been a chance they had kids by now, but it wasn’t like they would have told the quiet lad with their dead aunty.

 

Only time he ever saw a baby was on the rare occasions he left the house.

 

“What brought you here, Stefan?”

 

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

 

Stefan looked down at his hands. When was the last time he knew anything? He knew his fingernails were rough from chewing. He knew code flowed easier if there was something to keep him grounded. Hunger, pain, exhaustion. Sometimes all three.

 

“Dad tried to get me to keep doing therapy and it’s- it’s bloody awful. You don’t know my dad, Colin. He’s- he tries, y’know? He tries really hard but what he tries isn’t…”

 

“What you need.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He looked up again. Colin was leaning forward in his chair, back in the chair again- when did he get back in the chair? His eyes were wide. Made him think of a camera lense. Wide open, never blinking, all seeing. Stefan looked back to the poster.

 

Colin rose from his chair. “ ‘Ey, Kit,” he called. “Why don’t you take Pearl off to your parents’? Stefan’s in deeper than I thought. We’re gonna need the place to ourselves.”

 

He didn’t hear what she had to say in return, but she must have agreed because the door shut not half a minute after.

 

“She’s sweet, Kitty, but she’s a bit too, ah…” Colin snapped as he thought of the word. “Immobile.”

 

Stefan frowned. “Then why do you live with her?”

 

“It’s complicated. Why don’t you lay down.” It wasn’t a question.

 

Nerves bubbled in Stefan’s gut and he eyed him cautiously.

 

“Go on. Lay down.”

 

Stefan swallowed. He laid down slowly. He stared up at the ceiling and clasped his hands tightly against his chest.

 

“Loosen up now. I’m not trying to chop you to bits.”

 

He really wished he could have kept himself from flinching.

 

“Shut your eyes, Stef. Take a deep breath. Think about your dad. How would ya change him? What’d make him better? Don’t say anything. Think.”

 

Less nosy. More understanding. Less pity. More affection. Less doctors. More conversations.

 

A gentler tone without talking like he’d break at any second. No shouting matches over stupid rubbish.

 

Stefan scrubbed his hands down his face. He just wanted another mum.

 

Mum, who let him have rabbit wherever he went because he was just a little boy after all. Mum, who held his hand when he was scared and told him he was a very brave boy for getting through the rough patches. Mum, who would _listen_ when he talked about how cool his blocks were or how interesting it was how the telly worked.

 

He pinched the bridge of his nose, willing for the tears to leave him be.

 

Colin must have caught his sniffle. “It’s alright to cry, y’know. Being adults doesn’t make for easy living. Especially with a dad like yours, eh?”

 

“It’s just- after- after mum, he- I don’t know. It’s like he just didn’t know how to be a Dad anymore. And I don’t know if that’s true or if he was just a twat from the start. He can’t- it’s like he sees me and all he thinks about is what’s wrong with me. He takes me to a doctor and it doesn’t do a damn thing. And all he does is wanna shove more pills in me. And he doesn’t even _try_ to understand my work. He asks how things are, but I explain him something I’ve told him a thousand times over and he just- he doesn’t get it!”

 

Colin hummed. “Better out than in, right?”

 

“That isn’t funny, Colin.” Stefan said sat up, almost rising to leave. Colin stood in front of him and pushed him down. His hand on his chest was firm, not at all painful, but it did not relent until Stefan’s knees buckled. He fell back onto the couch with a _foomf_.

 

“Never said it was funny.” Colin cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “When’s the last time you had proper rest?”

 

“Probably when I was in the bloody womb.”

 

Colin grinned at that and something in Stefan did a cartwheel.

 

“We can go back to that, you know.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

Colin snapped his fingers.

 

-

 

A man knelt in front of Stefan. He held Rabbit close to his chest. The man’s hair was almost white it was so blond. Spikey, too. The man held out his hand and Stefan stared at it.

 

“Come on, lad. Come ‘ere, yeah?”

 

Stefan looked up at the man. “I don’t know you.”

 

The man smiled. “No. Not yet you don’t. I’m Colin. What’s your name?”

 

“Stefan,” he said shyly.

 

“Good to meet you, Stefan.” Colin hoisted him up into his arms, resting the boy on his hip. “Why don’t we take a look around?”

 

Only then did he finally take note of his surroundings. Stefan looked right and left. This wasn’t his home. It wasn’t grey enough to be home. There were _much_ too many colors.

 

“What’s that poster?” Stefan pointed.

 

Colin grinned and hitched him higher on his hip. “ _That_ , Stefan, is from Akira. It’s a film. It’s a bit scary, but I promise you it’s a lot of fun.” He pat the boy’s back. “In the meantime, why don’t we get properly settled. You like drawing, Stefan?”

 

He shook his head. “Da says it’s not for big boys. Says it’s too little. For sissies.”

 

“Think your Da might be a bit touched in the head.”

 

Stefan shrugged as he picked at Rabbit’s ears.

 

“Quiet thing, aren’t you? Half thought you’d be different from how you are. Will be. Were. See, Stefan, time’s a funny concept.” As he spoke, Colin set up the coffee table with papers and pencils for Stefan to doodle with. “It doesn’t quite work like this.” He drew a straight line. “It’s a bit more like this.” He drew a small circle and filled it in. “See, the filled in bits are different straight lines. And these straight lines are always coming back to each other and crossing over. Yeah?”

 

The boy nodded. Pencil in hand, Stefan drew a series of clumsy interlocking circles and started to fill them in.

 

“Oh, you’ve got it now, lad.” Colin grinned like a madman. “What’s that?”

 

“Everything.”

 

Colin clapped him on the back with a chuckle. “You’re a smart kid, Stefan.” The boy wormed away from the sudden touch, moving his paper with me. “ ‘M drawin’. You’re gonna mess it up.”

 

“Right, sorry.” Colin kept himself at arms’ length from the boy- the real last thing he wanted was to chase a kid all over his home. Kitty got all miffed if things weren’t in their proper place.

 

Stefan kept drawing. The three circles (though really more like ovals with his clumsy kindergarten hands) came together like a Venn diagram. All three were lightly colored in, growing darker with each overlap. The middle where they all overlapped was the darkest. Stefan ground his pencil point to a stub trying to get it properly dark.

 

Colin watched with furrowed eyebrows. “What’ve you got, Stefan?”

 

“Map.”

 

Colin leaned forward. “Are we on that map?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Colin pat down his pockets until he found a pen. He offered it to the boy. “Show me where we are, Stefan.”

 

Stefan drew a dot in one of the spots where the circle coincided- but not in the middle.

 

“How do you know this?”

 

The little boy shrugged. “Just do. ‘M not at home. And I dunno you. Has to be different, doesn’t it?”

 

“Yeah…” Colin said idly, thoughts whirling in his head. Maybe the universe knew better than sending numbers. This was much better than numbers. He should have thought of this thousands of timelines ago. Or maybe he had. Maybe this is the only one where it has worked.

 

“Where’re you from?”

 

Stefan put a dot in an outer circle.

 

“Now show me where _I’m_ from.”

 

Another dot, this time in a different point of overlap- still not in the middle.

 

“How do we get there, Stefan?” Colin placed his finger in the middle of the diagram. “Do you know?”

 

Stefan looked up at Colin for the first time. He stared him, unblinking. “I don’t want to go there,” he said not fearfully.

 

“Why? What’s there?”

 

“Dunno.”

 

Someone stepped into the room. Both heads snapped upwards.

 

Stefan furrowed his eyebrows from the doorway.  

 

“Colin? Who’s that?” said the older Stefan.

 

Panic flashed over Colin’s face for half a moment, then astonishment, then the joy of new discovery. “Stefan,” he rose and crossed to the middle of the two, “I’d like for you to meet Stefan.”

 

The two stared at each other.

**Author's Note:**

> akira the movie comes out in 89 but i think bandersnatch is set in 85?? idc, it's a good movie and time doesn't matter.
> 
> will i write another chapter? idk
> 
> i had fun writing this. i hope you like it.


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